Current mood:

guilty

Belated Eastern Europe and Western Europe updates
OK, so I've been a wee bit slack about posting these to both my LJ as well as emailing them around lately. This is the latest update on eastern europe et al, written around 27th Oct - make you're self comfey as its another long one (when do I ever write anything else?)

Hiya Everyone,

Yes I know its been a while since my last update, but rest assured I´m still alive and well and enjoying my travels :)

In my last installment I believe I was just leaving Budapest and was about to arrive in Belgrade, Serbia. I can´t remember how many days ago that was, but off the top of my head that was 3 or 4 countries ago :) So, in summary of the last 4 countries (although you might wanna get a cuppa anyway and my ´summaries´ always seam to end up as epics . . .).

Belgrade, Serbia:

Belgrade is not a pretty city, but then again, I wasn´t expecting it to be. The things that spring to mind when I think of Belgrade are potholes, pollution, and rain that turns said pot holes into puddles the size of small swimming pools. Belgrade isn´t the prettiest city to begin with - lots of multi story, grey concrete communist style buildings, made more dreary by grey sky's and endless drizzle . . . The city Does have positive points - there are some interesting museums etc. The ethnography museum with examples of traditional costumes from the country side and rural life was pretty dam cool - I recon you could team one of those silver belt buckles and one of the beautifully embroidered shirts with jeans and some funky shoes and you would have a cool outfit :). Apart from that I meet some lovely Serbia people - the woman I was couch surfing with was just lovely and totally looked after me. It was interesting hearing her take on the war and then marrying that with what I heard from people in Bosnia later on, but I think that's a discussion for another time!

I did manage a day trip to Novi Sad, which was cleaner and prettier, but also apparently the place that got bombed more than Belgrade as it was and for that matter still is the head quarters of the extreme right in Serbia, or so I heard ...

Sarajevo and Mostar, Bosnia and Herzegovina:

First up, Bosnia and Herzegovina is one of The most beautiful countries I've been to. A large part of it is mountains covered in trees with stunning blue lakes in between. On the bus from Belgrade the trees were just starting to get their Autumn colours, and the deep green forests were interspersed with drifts of golden green, vibrant oranges and rusty reds . . . Sarajevo just had an amazing feel to it. The people have been through So much, and could have a massive chip on their shoulder, but instead they chose to be friendly and spend time with their friends and family and enjoy their lives as if each day might be their last, because during the seage it very likely was going to be. You can still visit places like the tunnel museum and sniper ally and see the bullet holes in the buildings, and see the surrounding hills that seams to enfold the city with their beautiful greenery, but were once ideal sentinel points for the invading army to pick people off from ... I found Sarajevo to be amazing and heart wrenching, much more so that other stories I have head of wars through out history. The guy who is running the hostel I was staying in was a child during the siege - the hostel is now build in on the top floor of his family home that was shelled and destroyed and has since been rebuilt. He took us on a tour of the city and gave a very personal account of what is was like for him living through that. And yet despite all he's been through he's a great host running a great hostel and wants to encourage people to come to Bosnia as tourism is one of the few ways the local people can make a better life for them selves (Bosnia and Herzegovina dosn´t have any real major industries of is own as far as I know). The city itself is smallish, interesting, friendly and cheep. One of those places were you don´t mind eating out lots 'cause you know its helping support the local economy and its so cheep you can afford to eat out lots anyway . . .

From Sarajevo it was onto Mostar, a cute little town in the south west (I think) that was almost totally flattened during one of the wars (I believe it was Croatia that time). The old town has mostly been restored, and the famous bridge is suitable beautiful and spans a deep river that's almost to blue and pure to be true :) There's a few blocks of unrestored buildings - I got to a point where I had to ask myself how many more photos I needed of shelled, falling apart buildings simply Riddled with bullet holes, so much so you wonder how the buildings are still standing . . . The only time I ever felt unsafe in Bosnia was when I stood in the door way of one of these buildings and the phrase 'un exploded land mine' drifted through my brain, and I didn´t want to go in any further ...

I could continue raving about Bosnia and Herzegovina but I think I´ll stop there. I don´t think I've fully taken in all I saw there yet, and I think it'll be even longer before I realize the just how going there has effected me and how I think about the world - I know it has, but I just can´t see exactly how yet. I know that going somewhere like that just makes me feel very, very luckily that I grew up in Australia.

Croatia:

Due to the fact I spent a bit of extra time in Bosnia and Herzegovina I only had two nights in Croatia, one in Dubrovnik and one in Split. Of the two I preferred Dubrovnik, with its cute walled old town and beautiful coast line and more churches than a town of that size would appear to warrant :) You can walk all around the town on the city walls and the views over the roof tops of the town and surrounding coast line in the evening light is rather gorgeous I have to say :) The old town is all cobble lined streets and cute squares and fountains - not a hell of a lot of locals around, but then again Croatia has a lot more tourist glitz than the rest of Eastern Europe, even in September. Split was also kinda cute, but as its the primary ferry port its just got that much more touristyness due to the sheer number of people to pass through on their way into or out of Croatia . . . In the end the only way to get back to Italy was to catch the overnight ferry from Split back to Anconna in Italy. Rather than crashing on the floor in deck class again (I did that in Greece last year) this time I shelled out the extra euros and got a bed in a cabin and I swear it was nicer than a bunch of hostels I´ve stayed in! I had a clean, comfy bunk bed with crisp white sheets, comfy pillow and fluffy blue blanket And there was a wash basin and Tiny en suite with a shower and loo squeezed into a space about the size of your average broom cupboard, and a fluffy white towel provided :). So I actually got some Sleep and arrived in Italy relatively refreshed, esp after a shower in the morning :) (OK, so maybe that disqualifies me from being a hard core traveler and I don´t care! sometimes you just need a few home comforts for the night).

Italy:

Ah Italy, how I adore thee. Back in the land of some of the worlds best coffee, gelato and guys who spend more time in the bathroom than I do :) Rome was pretty dam fantastic. Katie arrived safe and sound and I manged to find the correct arrivals gate about 30 seconds before she walked through it :) Rome is a city that wears its ancient history with ease, where you can get blessed by the pope in the morning, wander through several hundred year old ancient roman ruins in the afternoon, and then party late into the night (or go home and fall asleep early after a long days sight seeing as we did :) ). The Colosseum was impressive, but was in a very sorry state of repare, mostly due to the fact various generations have pilfered all the usable marble etc and building supplies for other buildings through out the city. Similarly most of the marble from ruins of Palatine Hill can now be seen on the walls and floors of the Vatican city :) We did a brilliant walking tour of the Hill, which is just as well as there are not explanations around, and without them it just looks like a buch of old, falling apart walls . . . The Roman Forum was similarly in ruins, although required less imagination to picture the ancient gradure of the fallen Roman Empire :) After 2 or 3 sites you do get a bit ruined out - there are only so many falling apart walls and column tops you can look at before it all starts to look a bit samey . . .

The Pantheon was the one exception to this, probably because its not actually a ruin. The original structure was built as a temple to various 'pagan' gods I believe, and was later appropriated as a church, which I understand is why the barbarians left it alone and its still standing today, more or less as it has for the last 2000ish years . . . Just amazing, especially when you think it was all build way before handy things such as cranes and jacks and even electricity was invented :) The Vatican was interesting - the basilica was stunning but the museum was unfortunately one of the most confusing and worst sign posted I have ever been to. There are virtually no explanations on anything, so a lot of the time you're seeing some amazing stuff and you don´t even know it. And about the only section that's sign posted is the Sistine chapel which Is amazing, but somewhat hard to appreciate when you're packed in with about 200 other people and the guards keep telling you to shh . . . It kinda made me a bit cross, actually ´cause they must be making a Mint outta that place, the lest they could do is spend a bit of money on providing some floor plans and some signs and explanations . . .

Florence was, well, suitably amazing. I´ve been to Florence several times before, but this time finally went into the 2 major galleries - the Uffizi and the Academia. I think I'm going to add Botticelli to my list of favoured painters :) The Birth of Venus is just beautiful and so much more impressive in really life than in pictures, as is usually the case with amazing paintings :) The Academia was a much smaller gallery and the major thing to see was Michelangelo's David, which I have to say is simply Stunning (the phrase ´it is wrong to lust after a 5m high marble statue?' springs to mind, I could go on at this point, but you know, my grandmother and work colleagues read these posts . . . :) ). We just sat there for about 20 - 30 mins taking it all in from various angles . . .

Venice was suitably Venetian, all canals and bridges and still rather a lot of tourists. Made it into the Basilica this time, which was pretty, although but this point in the trip I have to say I´m getting a little churched out. The Doge Palace next door was quite impressive, with its ancient gradure and interesting explanaints of where the various ruling councils used to site and stories of the one of the great ports of old :) Ok I know that explanations dosn´t nearly do justice to it, but its rather late and I´m tired :)

The update on Spain I feel will have to wait for another day, but at least I´m now up to the country I´m currently In, although am heading off to Paris on an early train tomorrow morning :)

Hope everyone back in the UK, Australia and everyone else in between is having a good Autumn/spring.

A quick note to my London friends, Katie and I will probably be getting to London around Friday 2nd Nov next week, so if anyone could possibly put us up for a few nights it would be most apreciated! (we flight out again to Australia on Sat 10th Nov). I'll be organising a catch up and maybe drinks or something for my birthday on Thursday 8th Nov anyway :)

Cheers
S